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<div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Vern Weitzel</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:vern.weitzel@gmail.com">vern.weitzel@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Date: Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 6:27 AM<br>Subject: [health-vn] Interpol Seizes $6.65 Million in Counterfeit Drugs<br>To: "[health-vn discussion group]" <<a href="mailto:health-vn@cairo.anu.edu.au">health-vn@cairo.anu.edu.au</a>><br>
<br><br>sent to health-vn MDG List by Vern Weitzel <<a href="mailto:vern.weitzel@gmail.com" target="_blank">vern.weitzel@gmail.com</a>><br><br>Subject: [AIDS ASIA] Interpol Seizes $6.65 Million in Counterfeit Drugs<br>
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:07:04 -0000<br>From: AIDS ASIA<<a href="mailto:AIDS_ASIA@yahoogroups.com" target="_blank">AIDS_ASIA@yahoogroups.com</a>><br>Reply-To: <a href="mailto:AIDS_ASIA-owner@yahoogroups.com" target="_blank">AIDS_ASIA-owner@yahoogroups.com</a><br>
To: <a href="mailto:AIDS_ASIA@yahoogroups.com" target="_blank">AIDS_ASIA@yahoogroups.com</a><br><br><br><br>Interpol Seizes $6.65 Million in Counterfeit Drugs (Update2)<br>By Simeon Bennett<br><br>Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Interpol seized more than $6.65 million of<br>
counterfeit medicines against malaria, HIV and tuberculosis in<br>Southeast Asia and made 27 arrests, disrupting the region's fake drug<br>trade for the second time in three years.<br><br>The haul, part of a five-month investigation called Operation Storm<br>
across Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and<br>Vietnam, involved almost 200 raids, Aline Plancon, an officer<br>involved in the action, said today by e-mail from Phnom Penh,<br>Cambodia.<br><br>Global sales of fake drugs may reach $75 billion in 2010, an increase<br>
of more than 90 percent from 2005, the Geneva-based World Health<br>Organization said on its Web site, citing the New York-based Center<br>for Medicine in the Public Interest.<br><br>Under Operation Storm, which ran from April 15 to Sept. 15, police<br>
seized more than 16 million pills, including fake antibiotics for<br>pneumonia and child-related illnesses, Plancon said.<br><br>Asia is the world's biggest producer of all counterfeit products, the<br>Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a<br>
report last year. About 40 percent of 1,047 arrests related to fake<br>drugs worldwide last year were made in Asia, according to the<br>Washington-based Pharmaceutical Security Institute.<br><br>Counterfeits account for as much as 30 percent of all drugs in<br>
developing nations and less than 1 percent of all medicines in<br>developed nations such as the U.S., according to the WHO.<br><br>Malaria Drugs<br><br>Of particular concern to health officials are copies of a class of<br>
malaria drugs called artemisinins that are the basis of the most<br>effective treatments against the disease, including Novartis AG's<br>Coartem.<br><br>Counterfeit artemisinin-based treatments containing small amounts of<br>
the medicine are helping the parasite responsible for malaria to<br>evade authentic drugs in patients near Cambodia's border with<br>Thailand, a recent study showed.<br><br>As a result, genuine artemisinin-based treatments are starting to<br>
fail, raising the risk the resistant parasite will spread, leaving<br>millions of people defenseless against a disease that already kills<br>about 2,400 people every day.<br><br>Operation Storm was a joint effort between Lyon, France- based<br>
Interpol, the WHO and the World Customs Organization. It's the first<br>time police, customs, drug regulators and health authorities from<br>different nations have worked together to combat counterfeit<br>medicines, Plancon said.<br>
<br>It followed Operation Jupiter, which led to drug seizures and arrests<br>in China and Myanmar.<br><br>To contact the reporter on this story: Simeon Bennett in Singapore at<br><a href="mailto:sbennett9@bloomberg.net" target="_blank">sbennett9@bloomberg.net</a> <mailto:<a href="mailto:sbennett9%2540bloomberg.net" target="_blank">sbennett9%40bloomberg.net</a>>.<br>
<br>Last Updated: November 17, 2008 03:34 EST<br><br><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news" target="_blank">http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news</a>?<br><br>health-vn List<br>Bringing Millennium Development Goals Closer to the People<br>
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